Exstinctor
by aadarshinah
Summary: The worst are full of passionate intensity. #35 in the Ancient!John 'Verse. McShep.
1. Pars Una

_Exstinctor_

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

**29 June, 2007 / XXX Qui. a.f.c. I – Atlantis, Lantea, Pegasus**

The very picture of insouciance, John lifts his hands off the back of the couch and holds them high, wide, and inviting, as if he were welcoming Colonel Ellis and his threats into the city rather than laughing at this latest lie. Chuckling slightly, "Go right ahead," he says, allowing his arms to fall carelessly back onto the couch, one of them brushing against the back on Rodney's neck as it lands. "The few of my kind that remain in the Higher Planes are idiots and imbeciles, more concerned with clinging to their out-dated, broken philosophies than they are with doing something _good_ and _just_ and _right_ for once in their miserable lives. I'll even press the button, if you want. After all, what's one more genocide on my conscious?"

Rodney's eyes, which have been watching Colonel Ellis manage to somehow stiffen despite the metal rod already shoved up his ass, snap to John. "Be serious," he admonishes.

"I am," John says lightly, not even looking at him. "Go," he tells the Colonel, waving one of his hands dismissively. "Get the Sangraal. I promise to wait right here for you to get back. I won't even shoot at your ship or anything."

"John," he hisses. "Don't be stupid. The Sangraal will kill you."

"The Sangraal only kills things in the Higher Planes," he says confidently, barely glancing his way, "and I'm rather hopelessly mired in this one."

"How about we not test that theory," Rodney suggest before turning to the only other sane person left in the room. "Lorne, just tell the man you don't want to be _imperator_ and finish this mess now. I'm tired and I'd like to go to sleep some time before morning."

But Lorne…

Lorne just stands there, shaking his head sadly. "I'm sorry, Doctor McKay. If there was any other way, believe me, I'd take it, but Icarus is… He's not himself anymore. He's let them turn him into a god."

"Don't be an idiot, Major. John knows he's not a god. He only puts up with the Ancestral religion because we needed a compelling reason for planets to join the Confederation."

"He's been abusing his powers."

"To build us ships!"

"To build us ships," Evan agrees quietly, "and to alter your memories."

For a second, the only sound Rodney can hear is the rush of blood in his ears – no one in the room seems to dare breathe, and even 'Lantis, normally so vibrant and full of life, pauses her song. He cannot believe it. He doesn't _want_ to believe it. Yet Evan seems so _certain_ of it, to the extent that he's sided with Earth and Colonel Ellis against them…

He turns towards John. Quietly, so quietly that even he has to strain to hear, he asks, "Is it true?"

"Rodney-"

Oh, that tone of voice. John has been able to make him do any number of things with that voice. And here it is now, trying to make him understand with that one word, trying to make him forgive the unforgivable just by how he says his name. That he's using it all is proof enough, but Rodney has to hear it. He has to hear him say the words if he's ever going to believe it.

He jumps to his feet. Ignoring Evan, ignoring Radek, ignoring Colonel Ellis, he moves to stand directly in front of John, so close that an inch or two more would have him standing between his spread legs. "Tell me," he begs, hating how his voice quivers but unable to steady it. John has always made him brave, but how can he be brave against John? John is-

John is a good man.

John is selfless and righteous and kind.

He is the best man Rodney has ever known.

He won't meet Rodney's eyes.

It takes a lifetime for John to answer, and though he's not moved from the couch everything about him has changed. Everything about him is sharper now, harsher, colder. He's no longer then man who spent the last hour joking and drinking shitty redcurrant wine with the enlisted men in the mess hall; he's become the man who ordered them to annihilate a planet without so much as a second thought, the one whose hands are stained by the blood of his own people; the one who still believes deep in his soul that the only thing worthwhile about himself is his ability to destroy and so gave himself over to the task with the greatest aplomb.

For all this, John doesn't look like he's going to start attacking anyone. He looks resigned but not repentant, as if he'd do it all over again, exactly the same, from the moment he sat down in the Control Chair so many years ago to this moment now.

Rodney should hate him for it, but he can't. He loves John, loves him even as he breaks his heart, saying, "I had no choice-"

"Dammit, John!" he snaps, the flush of betrayal making him bold. Love or not, this is his mind they're talking about – the only thing that makes him anyone important, that makes him anyone at all. If he wasn't undeniably the smartest person in two galaxies, then nothing Elizabeth could have said or done would have made him part of the First Expedition. Without which he would never have met John, if they had even managed to find John in time, before he bled out from ten thousand year old injuries.

And John had risked destroying that with every time he meddled with his mind. "How many times?" Rodney asks, voice remarkably even.

"You wouldn't listen-"

"How many times?"

"I had to make you listen-"

"_How many times_?"

"Three."

"You _bastard_," he rails.

John rises to his feet, more smoothly and gracefully than he actually managed as a mortal, his robe swirling like the shadows around him. "I did what I had to do," he says. "I didn't like it, I didn't want to, but it had to be done," his voice powerful and pleading at once.

John is a mess of contradictions at the best of times – a confused, tangled mass of old and young, alien and human, solider and civilian, Caesar and supplicant; utterly loyal but incapable of believing anyone might be loyal to him, full of violent good faith but sceptical to the point of incredulity, a believer of people but not ideals, a consummate soldier but not militant by nature, dismissive of blood but fiercely protective of his chosen family. In short: a good man who refuses to be great, which has the rather unusual consequence of making him the best of them all.

But this is far from the best of times. As a result, the diametric contention at the core of John's very being has been pushed to extremes – he is now hero and villain, saviour and conqueror, creator and destroyer, prophet and pariah, god and the devil himself all at once. The slightest touch could push him to either terminus once and for all, without recourse or remorse.

"How is _meddling with my memory_ something that _had to be done_?"

"You weren't listening. I had to make you listen – I had to make you see."

What Rodney doesn't know is how he couldn't see it before. The man he fell in love with is gone, or near as. All that remains is the mask he wears to hide the truth that Evan saw long before he did: that people are what they pretend to be, and John had played god for too long for it not to have an affect on him.

"See? See what?"

"That I've not changed. I'm still the same person I was before I Ascended."

Maybe there _is_ still something of the ridiculous, impossible man he'd fallen on live with in this creature – this fallen angel, this nascent god. Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully. But, "You think you're a god!"

"They worship me. Isn't that enough?"

"That doesn't make you a god!"

"Every thing that I am, through no action of my own, is considered divine. To be myself is to be transcendent. I am sacrosanct by existing. I am holy because I am."

"That sounds like an awful lot of justification for someone claiming to be a god," Colonel Ellis interrupts – stupidly, in Rodney's opinion. Really, what is the American military teaching its officers these days? Certainly not how to avoid conflict and bloodshed, that's for sure. Still, he's grateful for the interruption. It covers the sound of his heart shattering into a thousand splinters that smash against the office floor.

John's eyes snap upwards, staring the other man down over Rodney's shoulder. "I'm taking the time to explain because I know you have a hard time understanding. Blind obedience isn't exactly sometime I go in for, or obedience at all, for that matter. Unlike some people, I don't think fear or forced indoctrination does all that much good in the long run."

"Funny coming from a man who just finished committing genocide on his second species in six months."

"I'm not looking to make it a third, but that doesn't mean I won't."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, it was an invitation to dinner – of course it was a threat," Rodney snaps, turning around so glare at Colonel Ellis himself. He's met people with less common sense, but all of them are dead. "Only, John doesn't do threats. He tends to tell you exactly what it is he's doing to do and proceeds to do it in exceptionally violent and nightmare inducing ways – and that was before he got it into his head that he was a god."

"I-"

"You want me to believe you've not changed?" he asks, rounding on John madly, all sense of self-preservation lost alongside his heart and any hopes he might have had for the future. Madness is driving him now, because it is either madness or heartache, and heartache won't get him anywhere – won't stop John from wiping his memory again if he decides Rodney doesn't adequately _understand_ this time either. "Then you let Colonel Ellis get The Ark of Truth off his ship. If you're still singing the same tune after you look into it, _then_ we'll talk about this god business. Otherwise we start taking separate vacations and figure out who gets the kids."

"Fine."

"I'm serious about-" Rodney blinks. He hadn't expected this to be this easy. He hadn't expected this to happen at all. The moment _god _had slipped past John's lips, he'd thought he'd lost him forever. "Fine?"

"Rodney," he says patiently, and he doesn't _look_ any different. He just looks like John, eyes a little too old for his face, expression a little to alien for his features. He certain doesn't look like someone whose gone Ori and betrayed every trust Rodney had in him. But his is and he did, and that makes John's next words hurt all the more, "You're the only good thing that's ever happened to me. If looking into the Ark is what it takes for you to believe me, I'll do it twice a day and three times on Sunday for the rest of our lives."

"Oh," Rodney breathes.

Even after years of being together, he always is surprised by the ferocity of John's love for him. That, even so far gone, so close to the edge that he must be clinging to the edge of reason with his fingernails, so close to falling that he hasn't got a clue how deep he really is, he's willing to risk all of that for him.

John is Ascended. Even if he's not the god he claims, somewhere, locked inside the brain that is only a manifestation of his desire for a tangible body with all the trappings of mortality, is the knowledge of how the universe works: The nature of dark matter. The superfluous details of the universe's birth and the shape of its death. The exact method of unifying gravitation with electronuclear force and finding that final theorem, the theory of everything.

Rodney's not stupid. He's easily the smartest person in two galaxies. On his good days, he'd even go so far as to extend that qualification to the known universe. But the fact remains that he will never acquire even a tenth of the knowledge John now has, even if he devotes himself entirely to solving the unsolved problems in physics and doesn't concern himself with any of the fifty-odd crises that are happening on or around Atlantis at any given time.

And despite all that, John loves him. As ignorant and tiny and mortal as he is, John loves him. Loves him enough to sacrifice everything he believes, for him.

It's a terrible and heady thought, and he's counting on it to save John.

"Colonel Ellis," he manages when he's finally found his voice, Rodney's voice sound thin and distant even to his own ears, "go get the Ark." Only dimly aware of the Colonel contacting his ship and beaming out of the room, he turns his full attention back to John. "After all of this is over, you and I are going to have a long talk."

"I hated it. Every time I had to-"

"Don't," Rodney says sharply, finally turning away. He catches a brief glimpse of Radek, sympathetic, and Evan, cautious, before he closes his eyes to shut them and the whole rest of the universe out. "Just, don't, please."

He can hear John audibly sink behind him. "Alright."

An eternity passes. Then another. He considers looking at his watch and seeing just how long Ellis has been gone, but that would involve opening his eyes and having to admit to the world just how red they've become. If he doesn't admit it, it's not real. If it's not real, than this is all just a terrible, terrible dream. If this is all just a dream, then John is still the man he's loved all this time and not some devil wearing his face and using his voice, saying such seductive lies that he'd almost rather believe them then risk losing the one good thing he's ever had.

But this isn't a dream. John isn't a devil yet. Once he looks in the Ark, he will remember the truth. Then this terrible eternity will end and everything will go back to normal. Only that sounds like some god-awful lie Jeannie would tell Madison, like the tooth fairy. Even if they get John back, he'll never be the same.

He's already lost everything.


	2. Pars Dua

_Exstinctor_

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

**29 June, 2007 / XXX Qui. a.f.c. I – Atlantis, Lantea, Pegasus**

"Alright," John repeats, as if steeling himself, and just when it looks like he's about to add something to that, he walks straight out of the room.

Rodney expects him to disappear – to hide somewhere deep in Atlantis' labyrinthine halls that only he knows exists anymore – but, to his surprise, he only has to chase him as far as the Control Room, where he's now giving orders to Jinto and his whole host of minions - younger children from various worlds, sons and daughters of some of the merchants who keep semi-permanent residence in Tower 11 these days and a handful of orphans no one but John is quite sure how they acquired.

"Go down to the mess hall," he orders one of them, a girl with dark skin and untamed hair that can't be a day over than eleven. "Lock up the alcohol and start rotating people through the infirmary – tell Doctor Beckett I want as many people on saline dips as he has IV lines. I want everyone capable of manning a _linter_ sober enough to do so before dawn."

The girl scampers to her (bare) feet and goes off at run to do John's bidding with no more than a toothy smile and a clumsy bow.

He turns to another – a boy this time, scarcely older, with pale, limp hair and a smattering of freckles across his face. He wears an old Expedition jacket – military black – and a blood red tunic underneath. "Wake up all of our people – the Émigrés only, none of the Expedition. Tell them I want them at their posts ten minutes ago. If anyone else asks you what's going on, tell them it's only a drill."

"Yes, Lord Iohannes," the boy says before running off.

John turns to a third, this one only eight or nine, saying only, "Bring me Doctor Kavanagh," before turning his attention back to Jinto, who's at the post Chuck mans during the day. "Raise the shield."

"John, what are you doing?"

"What I should have done ages ago."

"Oh, really! And what's that?" Rodney asks, standing on the other side of Jinto's station. He doesn't know what to do, what to say to make this right. All Rodney knows is that he cannot let John turn himself into the villain of his own story. A hair's breath may be all that separates John from becoming the conqueror of the galaxy he sought to liberate, but he can still be saved. Rodney has to believe that. Even if the John he gets back is not the one he's been slowly losing ever since his Ascension, he has to try. "Because it looks to me like you're about to start a war with Earth."

John rolls his eyes. "I'm removing the Second Expedition from the city. If Terra isn't going to trust me after I've done _nothing_ but help them _time_ after _time_ after _time_, they can just go back to where they came from."

"John, I love you more than life itself, but _I _don't even trust you right now!"

For a moment, John looks stricken, but it passes quickly, the most unreadable of expressions taking its place. As it does, he turns to Jinto and says, "Open a channel to _Apollo_."

"They're already hailing us, milord."

"Good. Put them on."

It takes a moment, but eventually Colonel Ellis' image appears on one of the display screens, clear at the centre and fading around the edges, giving way to lines of Ancient script running across the screen. One displays the exact position and speed of _Apollo_ in orbit, another the strength of her comm signal; the third counts the number of people aboard and the number of railguns pointed their way. It's an impressive number, but Rodney knows it would take a hundred 304sto make a dent in Atlantis' shield, even with their Asgard upgrades.

"Atlantis," Ellis asks, voice sharp with surprise, "Why have you raised shields?"

"Change of plans, Colonel. You're going to make ready to take aboard all the equipment the Second Expedition brought with them that I don't feel like keeping. I'm expelling the Second Expedition from the city."

"We have a contract-"

"And I'm breaking it."

"Colonel Sheppard, you cannot simply expect us to return to Earth with our tails tucked between our legs. So long as you are masquerading as a god, we will not tolerate your-"

John let's slip a bark of laughter. It's an ugly, harsh sound – the sound of a man on his way to the gallows, fully aware that he has no other options and so choosing to make it seem as if it were his choice all along. It's cocky and courageous, fearless and foolhardy, and one hundred percent the John Sheppard Rodney fell in love with. "You just don't get it, do you? You think that just because you don't like something means you have the right to destroy it – that because you succeeded against the goa'uld and the _Haeretici_ where all else failed that you have the right to play Big Brother to the universe.

"But tell me, Colonel, who elected you? Which planets chose your race to be their policemen _or_ their attack dogs? You use words like _tolerate_ when the truth is that _you're_ the ones being tolerated and _I'm_ the only one around actually bothering to speak for the people.

"I never asked to be a god. All I've ever wanted to do was bring peace to this galaxy and right the thousands of wrongs my people did to their ancestors by abandoning them to the Wraith. _They're_ the ones that named me god. _They're_ the ones that chose this path – and look at all we've already accomplished: the Asurans have been wiped clean off the map and soon the Wraith will follow. If you've a problem with any of my decisions, take it up with _them_. _They're_ the ones that made me."

"You're not a god, John," Colonel Ellis says.

"There are a billion people in this galaxy alone who say otherwise."

"John," Rodney interrupts before Ellis can offer a response that could only escalate things further, "just be reasonable about this. You don't have to like Earth, you can expel the Second Expedition, but don't start a war."

"There won't be a war," he says reasonably. "If they want a fight, we'll destroy them as easily as we destroyed Asuras."

"God damn it, John! My _sister_ is on Earth!"

Shrugging, "We can beam her off."

"And what about all the other billions of people on the planet who have absolutely no idea that Atlantis still exists? You going to blow them up too?"

"If I have to."

"That's not you, John!"

"Why do you keep saying that?" It's phrased as a question but comes out more of an accusation, as if _Rodney_ is someone the one at fault here, not he. "This _is _me, Rodney. This is who I am. This is what I do."

"No, no it's not. You just need to remember that."

"I remember everything."

"Then remember what you promised me," he begs, for once not caring about who can overhear, "I save you, you save me, no Ascended powers needed."

John shakes his head. "What I remember is that I watched you die. If I hadn't done what I did, you'd still be dead."

The image of a hallway, wide enough for three to walk abreast and stretching off into eternity, slips into Rodney's mind apropos of nothing. He can see himself screaming at John and John, bloodstained and careworn, pleading with him in return, but he can't make out the words.

Rodney stumbles backwards. "What did you do, John?" he asks, his words so distant he might not have said them at all – or, maybe, might not have said them _now_.

John moves towards him, concern outstripping his momentary anger, but they are not alone. It's Major Lorne who blocks his path, perhaps thinking in some strange way that he's _protecting_ Rodney, but it's Atlantis that interrupts, all but shouting into the silence that has descended over the room-

/A _linter_ has just dropped out of hyperspace. It is entering geosynchronous orbit above us./

"I.F.F.?" John asks, which must make no sense to anyone else watching because he doesn't even glance up at the ceiling. He just continues to stare unflinchingly at some spot just over Rodney's shoulder, as if doing so will fill him in on just why Rodney's so pissed with him – as if Rodney hasn't been trying to do exactly that for God only knows how many minutes now.

/No. Nor does it match the signatures of any _linter_ we know./

"_Futui in obliquum_," John spits, turning back towards the still open comm link. "_Apollo_, d'you have a visual?"

"A visual on _what_?"

John's hand slams down on the console in front of him. The lights flare above him, turning John into a blinding bright spot in the centre of the Control Room. "_Keep up_," he snaps, harsh and not a little cruel. "I get that you're only Descendants, that ten years ago you'd never even left your solar system, but even you can pick up the contact that just appeared in orbit above Atlantis. So, again I ask, _can you see it or not_?"

Ellis, momentarily perturbed, turns to his technicians and confirms, yes, a something has just appeared in orbit above them. While he manoeuvres _Apollo_ into visual range, Rodney watches Evan approach John slowly. Cautiously placing his hand on John's shoulder, "Icarus," he broaches, "you might want to tone it down a little."

"Why should I when they're being more incompetent than usual?"

"Because," Evan says, a little sharply himself, "you're sounding like Cousin Helia right now."

John sucks in a sharp breath at that, but before he can respond, Ellis says, "OK, I've got a visual. Looks like a satellite of some sort. No… Correction: it's a satellite, but in the middle there's a... Stargate."

* * *

Atlantis screams when the beam hits her shields.

* * *

Rodney rubs his temples tiredly. He can feel the weight of memories pressing in on him, so close to the surface but too far away to grasp as anything more than the slightest shimmers of suggestion.

"I am sorry."

"What for?" Rodney snorts, sparing Radek only the shortest of looks, preferring to stare tiredly at the sensor readings crawling damningly across his laptop than have to deal with people anymore today. "It's not _your_ fault my husband's gone batshit crazy or that our brilliant plan to destroy the Replicators is probably going to end is us being vaporized by the proverbial death ray. At least, I hope not. If it is, we're in worse trouble than I thought."

Radek sighs dramatically. "You make it very hard to feel sorry for you."

"Good. I don't need anyone feeling sorry for me, particularly you."

"_Proč ještě obtěžovat? Jste nevděčný blbec. _I had important position at university after Exodus. People respected my work. There was even talk of a Bohr Medal. But, no, I chose to come back here and help you, for all the good it's done me."

"Oh, please. We both know that you've done your best work under me."

"_Under you?_ I'm my own department head, you know."

"Please, we both know that department is a joke."

A bottle of aspirin slams down rather forcibly next to him. Following its trajectory, he finds John has slunk into the room while they're arguing and is now standing close behind him – farther than is his wont, but still close enough to grab Rodney shoulder and pull him under cover if necessary, because he learned long ago that John shows affection through actions, not words, and that if he bothers to pay any attention to half the things John says, he'll give himself a headache trying to make sense of it all.

So John is standing close, but not close enough to make Rodney uncomfortable. His posture is unthreatening, his sidearm hidden beneath his robes but still easily accessible, and his hair makes it look like he just rolled out of bed – in short, John's made an effort to appear as innoxious as possible. Which means John's made an Effort. Which means this Matters, which is gratifying but about five hours too late.

Don't get him wrong, Rodney still loves him, it's just going to take a long while and a good hard look in The Ark of Truth for him to start liking John again.

Provided, of course, they actually survive all this and can actually get John to look into the Ark, because the way things are going now, there are better odds that Jeannie will realize her life of vegetarianism is endangering the health and wellbeing of her daughter and repent of her crimes against nature.

"I take it you've come up with a plan to save the city and neglected to mention it? 'Cause it sounds to me like you guys are arguing about who works for who, which has to be wrong."

"_Měl jsem tě rád víc_," Radek says sourly, "_než jsi šel Nietzschen übermensch_."

"I can understand what you're saying, y'know."

"Just testing your translation matrix," he counters with a kind of militant cheerfulness that Rodney wasn't aware Radek had in him. He's kind of impressed. "We wouldn't want it to go out on us on top of everything else."

John's eyes narrow but he doesn't push the subject. "_Victoria_ and _Thetis_ got off safely with all of the non-essential personnel. _Apollo_ is still in orbit with most of the Second Expedition's people and _Vindicta_ and _Aurora_ are in port in case we need a quick getaway, so we're ready for whatever city-saving plan you've come up with."

"There _is_ no plan," Rodney tells him. "I'd say submerge the city, but since you insist that would be pointless-"

"The Asurans would know that would be the first step we'd take under an attack of this kind. They would have taken it into account."

"Yes, yes, so you say, but the fact remains that there is nowhere on the face of this planet that that thing cannot kill us."

"Alright," John says terrifyingly, clapping his hands together. "Let's go somewhere else then."

"Wait, _what_?"

"Atlantis is an _urbs-navis_. We can just fly her out of here. Pick another planet and," he makes a motion with his hand that he seems to think means _fly_, "go there."

"That… could actually work."

"Gee, thanks for the ringing endorsement there, buddy."

"Hey," Rodney says, turning around enough to give John a proper glare, "just 'cause we're in the middle of a Grade-A genuine crisis doesn't mean I've forgiven you for messing around with my memories. As soon as we've dealt with all of this, you and I are going to have a _talk_ – one that better end with me getting my memories back, because, let me tell you, separate vacations are still not out of the question. But," he adds with a sigh, "we just don't have that kind of power. Not when we need every scrap of it we have to keep the shields at max."

"So use me."

"What?"

"I'm a g- an Ascended being," he corrects quickly, as if sensing how well the G-word would go over right about now. "That means I'm essentially an Alteran-shaped ball of electromagnetic energy – a walking, talking battery. So plug me in. I should be able to make up the difference you need."

"John-"

"Look, it's the only way we're getting out of this alive, so I don't see what choice-"

"It will kill you! And if you think for one instant I'm going to stand here and watch you pull this, this _martyr_ crap on me one more time, it's not going to happen. I don't care how angry you think I am, I'm not going to let you do this!"

"What choice do we have?"

"I don't know!" Rodney exclaims. "We just need to find a way to take the burden off the shields for a minute, or calibrate one of the sensors on _Aurora_ or _Vindicta_ to track down the weapon at its source and bomb the hell out of it some more, or something. Something that isn't you sacrificing yourself on the altar of your conscious because you've somehow gotten it into your head that the only way you're worth anything is if you give your life for The Cause, whatever The Cause _du jour_ happens. You've given up one life for this city already. You're not allowed to do it again."

"Rodney," he says softly, "I watched you die-"

"Then you know how awful it is. So don't you dare put me through that _again_."

"I gave up _everything_ to make you alive again."

"_What does that even mean?_"

"You know."

"No I don't. You took the memory from me, remember?"

But it's too late, because next thing knows John's shaking his head, as if he knows everything Rodney is going to say – has ever said – will ever say – before saying with quiet resignation, "It's the only way."

And then, in a blink, he's gone.

* * *

They don't even make it out of the room before the engines start up, shaking so violently they're thrown to the ground as they rush for the nearest transporter.

* * *

** Atlantis, {?}, Pegasus**

The transporters are offline, though. Almost all the secondary systems are offline to conserve energy. By the time they make it to the Chair Room, the damage is already done: Atlantis is in hyperspace, en route to god alone knows where, and the bright, pure light that surrounds John as he pilots the city is fading fast – so fast that by the time they touch down on the ocean of some unknown planet, nothing is left of him but a shell and a shadow. But even those crumble as he tumbles from his seat and turn to dust before his body hits the floor.


End file.
